Staff

Peter Schnall

President, Producer, Director, Cinematographer

Peter Schnall is a seven-time EMMY Award and recent Peabody Award winner who has been making distinctive films and documentaries for more than twenty years.

After nearly ten years as an independent, Peter began a remarkable 6-year stint as Producer and Senior Producer ­ of the long-running National Geographic Television weekly series Explorer. During his time on Explorer, where his beat was real people, adventure, history and exploration films, Peter garnered an unprecedented six National Emmys, including four for best historical programming and two for cinematography.

In 1996 Peter left National Geographic Television to form Partisan Pictures in New York City.

When the White House was looking for a filmmaker they could trust to tell the story of Air Force One, they turned to Peter, giving him unprecedented access not just to the plane and its crew, but to three presidents as well; when Oprah Winfrey wanted a trusted filmmaker to document her humanitarian sojourn to Southern Africa to draw attention to the plight of children with
AIDS, she turned to Peter; and when the U.S. Secret Service wanted its story told to the American public, they, too, turned to Peter Schnall and Partisan Pictures.

Whitney Johnson

Vice-President of Production

Whitney Johnson joined Partisan Pictures in 2005 as our Coordinating Producer. Since assuming that role, she has managed more than 60 hours of programming, including the Peabody-award winning documentary, SILENCE OF THE BEES for PBS/Nature and the Emmy-winning series CIA Confidential for the National Geographic Channel. Other notable films include National Geographic’s ON BOARD AIR FORCE ONE for which she donned an abaya and traveled throughout the Middle East; and the PBS special THROUGH A DOG’S EYES which she still hopes will teach her how to re-program her ill-behaved French Bulldog, Olive. Before joining Partisan, Whitney worked as an Associate Producer for Elizabeth Arledge on the Emmy-winning film THE FORGETTING, a PBS special on Alzheimer¹s Disease; CRACKING THE CODE OF LIFE, NOVA’s 2-hour special about the race to decode the human genome; and the ABC/Peter Jennings’ Production, OUT OF CONTROL: AIDS IN BLACK AMERICA which received a 2006 Peabody Award for broadcasting excellence.

When not at Partisan, Whitney can usually be found at her local trapeze school learning aerial tricks, in the event that, one day, she might decide to run-off and join the circus.

Doug Shultz

Senior Producer

Doug Shultz has been producing award-winning documentary films for over fifteen years. Most recently, he wrote, produced and directed the documentary feature film, DEFIANT REQUIEM, which received two EMMY AWARD nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Historical Programming. The film premiered in NYC during IDA’s DocuWeeks, aired on PBS and has screened at over 50 festivals around the world. He also wrote, produced and directed several films for the acclaimed PBS series NATURE, enduring endless renditions of “Guantanamera” for CUBA: THE ACCIDENTAL EDEN, exploring the last of dying species in THE LONELIEST ANIMALSand investigating the disappearance of honeybees for SILENCE OF THE BEES which won a 2007 PEABODY AWARD, was nominated for four EMMY AWARDS, and which left him temporarily disfigured. Doug recently worked as Director and Series Producer for our EMMY-nominated espionage docudrama series SHADOW OPS, as well as on BLUE COLLAR DOGS for National Geographic WILD. He also wrote, produced and directed our recent EMMY AWARD-winning docudrama series CIA CONFIDENTIAL.

Doug flew across the African continent on the President’s plane forSECRET ACCESS: AIR FORCE ONE and produced the eight-hour MTV-meets-history series ICONS OF POWER for National Geographic Channel. Doug’s other work includes the award-winning special THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, QUEST FOR KING ARTHUR, the EMMY AWARD-winning four-hour series RUSSIA: LAND OF THE TSARS, and Discovery’s NEW YORK FIREFIGHTERS: THE BROTHERHOOD OF SEPTEMBER 11THth. Previous work includes the PBS specials BEYOND HUMAN: THE NEW AGE OF CYBORGS AND ANDROIDS and VOYAGE TO THE MILKY WAY, NOVA’s RUNAWAY UNIVERSE, Discovery Channel’s Shark Week special, HAMMERHEADS: NOMADS OF THE SEA, Reader’s Digest’s THE PLANETS and MYSTERIES OF DEEP SPACE and the award-winning 13-part National Geographic series ANIMAL EDENS.

In his free time, Doug can be found chasing primates, silkscreening Indian t-shirts and trying to catch a double backflip in flying trapeze school.

Don Campbell

Director of Development / Executive Producer

Don Campbell has over two decades of production experience on projects ranging from interactive multi-media, and museum exhibits to traditional broadcasting, corporate promotion and political consulting. Since joining Partisan in 1998 he has produced RUSSIA, LAND OF THE TSARS, QUEST FOR KING ARTHUR and IN SEARCH OF USS INDIANAPOLIS. He also wrote the scripts for AIR FORCE ONE, IN SEARCH OF LIBERTY BELL 7, SCHIZOPHRENIA and FIRESTORM.

Tristan Walker

Associate Producer

Sweet T, or “T-bolt Walker”, as no one really calls him, most recently spent time on Texas’ southern border, foraging for vegetarian tacos and following the canine officers of US Customs and Border Protection for BLUE-COLLAR DOGS: Border Hounds.

Olive

Office Monster

Olive has been tormenting our mail carriers and visitors for nearly five years. She’s an expert trash can hunter and stealth sandwich-stealer and, unlike many of the amazing dogs we have featured in our films, Olive really provides no service whatsoever. But look at her.